Devils fall in district opener

October 29, 2001|By Mike Dunn

"It was a miserable night, but we played hard and the seniors gave a good effort in their final game," said GHS coach Christian Janssens. "When we lost the coin toss and had to play against the wind to start off, it put us in a hole that we could never get out of."

Janssens was hoping to play with the wind and build an early lead, but it didn't turn out that way. Instead, Cadillac used the wind to its advantage. With its quick forwards and good ball-handling skills, the Vikings built an insurmountable 3-0 lead by halftime.

Gaylord tried hard, but couldn't win the battle against the elements and the pesky Vikings at the same time. The ball stayed in Gaylord's end for the entire first half, except for two brief instances when the Blue Devils were somehow able to take the ball past midfield.

Goalie Matt Lake played an absolutely great match under the circumstances. He faced 20 shots in the first half and stopped all but three, in spite of the wind and snow blowing his face continually. For the game, he had 24 saves.

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Cadillac's Jacob Rosingana opened the scoring with a penalty kick at the 32:36 mark.

The Vikings kept up the pressure and finally scored again at the 16:18 mark when feisty forward Andrew Blanchard headed in a pass in front from Rosingana. Two minutes later, Blanchard capped the first-half scoring with a fine individual effort on a breakaway.

The fact that the score was only 3-0 at halftime is a credit to Gaylord, and especially the defense. The Blue Devils, who have been snakebitten all season, lost three senior starters to leg injuries in the days leading up to Thursday's district opener. Sweeper and inspirational leader Josh Bergman suffered a stress fracture of his foot and steady defender John Davis and midfielder Chris Lockwood suffered knee injuries. And Gaylord was already without the services of senior Sean Hessler.

"With all the players we had missing, we needed to have some others step up and I thought they did a nice job," Janssens said. "We put (sophomore) Jordan Kleinhuizen back at stopper in place of Josh and he played a great match.

"Matt Lake played great in the nets. The defense had its back against the wall the whole first half, but responded really well."

After Cadillac built its lead to 4-0 with another goal by Rosingana early in the second half - "On their last goal, Matt told me the ball felt like a wet noodle," Janssens reported - the only suspense that remained was if Gaylord would be able to score.

Cadillac was on the offensive for the early part of the second half, even playing against the wind. Cameron Biery and Chris Forrest, who were brought up from the JV by Janssens, played well on defense during that stretch.

The Blue Devils finally showed some offensive spark 10 minutes into the second half when senior striker Dan Sevenski took a perfect pass from fellow senior Rapid Buddy Rabineau and broke free down the left side. Sevenski launched a left-footed rocket just inside the box, but the ball caromed off the post.

As the game clock wound down, Gaylord's efforts to score became more concerted. With 10 minutes remaining, senior Zach Hansmann booted a blistering low drive from 15 yards which forced the Cadillac goalie to make his best save of the night.

Two minutes later, Hansmann hit a corner kick which midfielder Nick Powell headed just over the top of the net. Five minutes later, Powell nearly scored again from in close. After that, Roarke O'Brien nearly put one through.

In the end, though, it was just not Gaylord's night. In a way, the game was a reflection of a long, tough season.

"The season started slowly for us and we never really got into a groove offensively," Janssens said. "And our conference was really tough this year, even tougher than we expected.

"On the plus side, the seniors played hard for us and gave us good leadership and we had some younger guys who saw a lot of playing time and got some valuable experience."

The seniors on the roster this season included Brian Peterson, Nate Steffes, Pete Mang, Seven-ski, O'Brien, Lockwood, Davis, Hessler, Hansmann and Rabineau, the team's leading scorer.